Pay attention, mobile-makers; Microsoft is showing off a new technology called SideSight at the User Interface Software and Technology conference in Monterey. SideSight allows for a mobile, touch-screen device with a twist: you don’t have to touch the screen.

Instead, the phone is controlled by moving your fingers in the space on either side of the device—essentially expanding the interface real estate greatly over a traditional touch screen. By moving your hands around the outside of the prototype SideSight device, objects and images on the screen can be rotated and manipulated, and text and pages can be scrolled through.

SideSight detects motion with an array of ten infrared proximity sensors lined up along each side. The prototype also features a smaller, traditional touch screen, allowing a user to write on the screen with a stylus in one hand, while moving the “page” by moving the other hand beside the device, simulating the way people write with a pen and paper.

Is this technology just a gimmick, or are we seeing the future of mobile devices? Give us your thoughts after the jump.